Blood-Red Sun
by Illyriarocks
Summary: Darker rewrite of the whole saga. Isabelle Swan is something of a juvenile delinquent. Amidst her parents' divorce, she's sent to Forks and becomes the object of obsession for vampires both good and evil, but the crafty young woman has her own agenda for these creatures. Roughly 20 chapters will be given to each arc (book). My first fic. Constructive criticism appreciated.
1. Prologue

**A/N: Flashbacks are italicized.**

**Prologue**

A police car at an airport was never an unusual thing, but the presence of the sheriff of Forks using a squad car to pick up his teenage daughter, now that was something to be curious about. Everyone in town knew that Charlie Swan was a bit overprotective of his daughter, Isabelle (Bella to him, even if she disliked the nickname), but this certainly took the cake.

"Hey, dad," the young girl called as Charlie exited the vehicle and enveloped her in a bear hug.

"How've you been, sweetheart?"

"Oh, I've been great, dad. Can we not talk about this here? I kinda wanna get home ASAP."

"Oh, oh… of course, yeah. Come on."

The drive home was a chatty one, at least by Isabelle's standards. There were more than the superficial '_How are you?'_ or _'I'm fine, how about yourself?'_ that normally pervaded their conversations. This was also the first time Charlie has been able to have a good look at his daughter since he and Renee got divorced: Isabelle's hair was short, a pixie cut of sorts, dyed the most beautiful shade of black. She wore red dangling earrings and sported a nose piercing. Although Isabelle knew of Charlie disapproval regarding all the smoking and drinking she'd been doing as part of something she dubbed a "personality makeover," Isabelle claimed it was her method escape from her parents' divorce. Even the teen knew that was bullshit, though. She was angry and lashing out, and Renee never really kept good tabs on her daughter's behavior…

"Dad, watch out!"

Charlie swerved to avoid a dog walking across the road. He was glad for a distraction, at least a momentary one, from the memories of the past six months. Isabelle had no such luxury, since the events from June till December were the entire reason for her coming to Forks in the first place…

_The last time this happened was the last class day of the spring semester, freshman year. Isabelle sat across from the principal, Don Faldo. The stench of cigarette smoke filled the entire room as Faldo munched on his tuna sandwich. Globs of mayonnaise and mustard fell out from between the bread and meat onto every lower extremity of his morbidly obese form. Not that Isabella minded. She was glad to be in this nauseatingly uptight man's office, about to be given the boot from this trashy public institute. Renee wasn't there to give her a good scolding in front of Faldo, thank god, as she was off partying with what's-his-face, the baseball player who had worse hand-eye coordination than a baby, and could almost be called negligent. But this expulsion was the third in less than two years, mostly for abhorrent pranks or flipping off and swearing at students and teachers she found unlikeable… which to her were all of them. Again, Isabelle thought such a thing was 'the cool thing to do,' or 'that it made her special or badass.' When the words were spoken, Isabelle proudly stood, shook the man's greasy hand, curtsied, and marched herself out the front door without so much as a goodbye to Martinique, a drama major who was the closest thing Isabelle had the entire time she was at the school. Hell, she couldn't even be bothered to remember the name. But whatever. Renee would not care in the slightest. Or so she thought. Renee gave her a pretty thorough chewing-out when the middle-aged accountant got home. In response, Isabelle slammed the bedroom door in her mother's face and blasted the music._

When they finally got home, Isabelle sat in the car for a good ten minutes just staring at Charlie's house. Taking it in. Charlie sat with her, trying to hold his baby girl's hand. Isabelle seemed unreceptive, so he dropped it.

"Hey, Bells, It's gettin' pretty cold, ya wanna come inside?"

"Yeah."

And so it was. Isabelle Swan, 17-and-a-half-years-old, living in a dusty, foggy town in Washington. The house was generic for the town. Two-bedroom, two-bathroom, living room, dining area, etc. Pretty meh, nothing special. Of course, Isabelle never told Charlie that. There were actually a lot of things Isabelle never told Charlie, like when she lost her virginity last month that it was with another girl, or the first boy she liked at 14 turned out to be a bookworm who thought Goths were "gauche." OR that Mr. Baseball Dude had gotten her mom pregnant. That one was best reserved for a later time, and honestly it'd be best if Renee told him herself. "_Take that, highbrow, holier-than-thou book-loving nerd person,"_ Isabelle thought, "_I do have sophistication and grace. I understand discretion and I possess a basic sense of morality."_

Her penchant for secrets sometimes invaded her dreams, and they soon turned to nightmares. On one such evening, there was a storm outside. Isabelle woke with a start and immediately shut the blinds and curtains. But the storm wasn't what had scared her once she woke up. It was the ill-defined figure in the forest surrounding the back end of the house like seating in a thrust theater. She looked away, as the figure seemed to be waving or something, and shut her eyes tightly. When she looked back, the figure was gone.

Out in the merciless onslaught of rain and wind, a young vampire named Edward Cullen stared up at his new object of pursuit. You could almost call her his new prey.


	2. Chapter 1: What Dreams May Come

**A/N: Just to be clear, the vampires and werewolves here are traditional vampires and werewolves. So, traditional weaknesses and appearances.**

**Chapter 1- What Dreams May Come**

High school is often known as a troubling, trying time for many youths, but for one Edward Cullen, it was a breeze. After all, this was the… actually, he'd lost count of how many times he'd tried and often failed to attend a normal high school. He managed to get by with almost straight A's, the only exception being a C in some irrelevant class like calculus or writing. People said his writings read more like bad "fan-fictions" (that was the term these days, Edward found, for speculative works based on a published art and he much disliked it) than actual novels of any real caliber. A few bullies in the 50's even compared his romances to poorly-disguised wet dreams, but that was neither here nor there.

He paid them no mind. He was a love-starved man, and he enjoyed writing short stories and poems on the subject as often as was possible. The last person he was in love with he ended up eating because, he claimed, voices in his head told him to. He was hanged in the town square a few days later. This was when he was young, a mere 109. He'd been a vampire for 80 of those years, and he had relished in those long decades. Or short. One must change their perception of time upon becoming a vampire. Now it was 2013, and he was almost 700. He'd looked for love in all the wrong places, and the night of last Monday, he visited a girl during the night.

Charlie Swan's daughter had come to town. Charlie had invited the entire Cullen family (Carlisle, Esme, Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmet) over for dinner. Poor Alice, Carlisle had lied, was busy with a particularly bothersome client at work. If only Charlie knew the truth; the sheriff adored the perky brunette. During her periods of lucidity, at least.

When dinner was over, and everyone had gone home or to bed, Edward crept into Isabelle's room and stroked her hair, then proceeded to stare at her for the next half hour. He was a visual person, and had a bad memory. This was his justification to himself. Some part of him thought this to be creepy, but the girl was so lovely. He hadn't gone last night due to the storm coming in. Edward despised storms.

At present, Edward strolled through the front door to the Cullen home, a pristine and beautiful place. On the rare occasion that people who came over, they described it as heaven on earth, it was so white and spotless. Edward headed into the kitchen and was surprised to find Carlisle, the patriarch of the family, giving him what could only be described as the best death glare anyone has ever given.

"Edward," Carlisle hissed.

The boy nonchalantly tossed his backpack into the living room.

"Dad," Edward hissed back, flippant as can be.

"Your mother caught Isabelle's scent while doing your laundry. She was sick with the flu when we were over for dinner. You snuck into her room at night, didn't you?"

"So what if I did?"

"Damn it, Edward! Charlie very graciously allows us to stay here, and he loves his daughter more than his own life! You cannot control yourself, boy! If you fuck up and something happens to her… do you want to get us all killed, because if Charlie doesn't, then the wolves will! Stay away from Isabelle Swan, or so help me, I will through you outside on a warm summer day and watch you burn!"

Edward scoffed and turned to head up to his room.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?"

"Homework."

"We are not finished, young man! Edward Frances Cullen, get back here right now! If… if you so much as touch her again, I'll compel her to leave… or something drastic!"

Edward turned back and grinned at his father before zipping up the stairs. Carlisle never was a good enforcer of his own rules, or that of others. Edward knew that and regularly flaunted it in Carlisle's face before his adoptive parents taught him to be more selective in his dietary habits. Carlisle leaned against the island in the middle of the room as Esme entered and rubbed her husband's back.

"Don't be so hard on him," she whispered.

"I have no idea what we are to do with that boy anymore," Carlisle moaned.

"He'll come to his senses soon, he always does," Esme reassured him.

"I highly doubt that, Esme."

Isabelle relentlessly tosses and turned that night. She'd told Charlie that her nightmares from her childhood had started up again, but had not been so forthcoming about their intensity. Tonight…

_**Isabelle sat alone in a field on a rainy day. A symbol of depression, or anxiety? Nope, her subconscious was a troll, random shit this and random shit that. Anyway, this field was noteworthy because everything in it was DEAD. The grass, the flowers, and even the trees. There were no bees or rabbits or deer or any sort of anything alive in this field except her, and who knows how long that would last? The girl faintly perceived a presence lurking in the trees. As she turned to face it, a pale young man lunged at her, teeth bared and growling. He was dressed in a dirty, post-grunge way, with unkempt hair and the like. Edward. Cullen. She'd seen him at the dinner table when she'd slipped down to see what all the laughing was about. Edward shoved her to the ground, only to be immediately grabbed and tossed through the air by the absolutely most beautiful redheaded woman Isabelle had ever seen. The green eyes only accentuated this beauty's majesty. She smiled and helped Isabelle to her feet, then flung the girl onto her back and sped off.**_

Isabelle gasped, jolting as if she were on a roller coaster. Somehow, she knew the woman's name.

"Victoria," she breathed.

Victoria, as luck would have it, was at that moment in town. Only, not to save a mortal. Instead, she was feeding on one, a park ranger to be exact. James gorged himself on a Quileute girl, who couldn't be more than eight. Their travelling companion Laurent was just a bit more detached from all that transpired before him.

"James," he called out to the messy-haired blonde with the most alluring of French accents. He'd won over quite a few victims by that accent alone.

"What, Laurent, sad I'm eating the one you found," James scoffed.

"Is this wise, feeding in the open like this? We could draw unnecessary attention to our activities, and we both know what that will mean."

"Be unafraid, my friend," James laughed as he tossed the corpse to the ground. "Attention is exactly what I want. The wolves in the area need to know they aren't the scariest monsters in town anymore."

He patted Laurent's face and began tying the corpse to a tree with a rope he'd brought along for that very purpose.

"What in hell do you think you're doing, James," Laurent asked.

Victoria did the same with her kill.

"Sending a message… to the werewolves _and_ the Cullens," she smiled.

"I abhor unneeded displays of violence," Laurent sighed.

"Then what in hell are you doing with us?"

James slammed Victoria against the tree with her kill on it, and the pair started to strip each other's clothes off. Laurent rolled his eyes.

"Do you have to do that, you two?"

"This is custom, Laurent. It's how we mark our territory."

Laurent looked from the amorous pair to the still-undefiled corpse with a hint of regret in his eyes. Whatever James and Victoria had in store for the small, backwater town of Forks, it wasn't good.


	3. Chapter 2: Disturbing Developements

**Chapter 2: Introductions and Recollections**

Ugh, the dreaded first day of school for the spring semester. Thankfully New Years fell on a Wednesday this year, so Thursday was spent handing out syllabi and meeting people, and Friday sped by like a bullet train.

On her way to the parking lot, Isabelle found herself, rather unfortunately, parked next to cheerleading captain Jessica Stanley. Isabelle had heard quite a few things about this girl, and none of them were of a pleasant nature. When Jessica bounded toward her car the instant the bell rang at 3:10, Isabelle did her best to hide behind the truck Charlie had loaded her. Jessica seemed intent on getting home, so Isabelle crept out of her hiding spot…

And walked _straight into _the pintsize, supposedly choleric lass.

They stared at each other in silence for about two seconds, before Jessica groaned, "You must be that new girl. The sheriff's daughter."

Isabelle decided to play it safe. Renee always told her that if you meet someone undesirable, you should stay away from them at all costs. Well, duh! What good childhood memories Isabelle had of her mother didn't paint the woman in an intelligent light. The young Goth had tried the avoidance method all day, so she decided to use what Charlie fondly referred to as a "smokescreen of shyness."

"Y-y-yeah. I am. So what?"

Jessica squealed like a little girl and flung her arms around Isabelle.

"I'm Jessica, but I bet you already knew that."

The cheerleader released Isabelle and smiled at her.

"I just wanted to welcome you to Forks High! Oh, don't look so timid! I'm gonna be your new bestie! Now, I noticed that you were checking out a decent portion of the guys today, but I'm sorry to say they're all taken. However, everyone here is rather loose, so a good shopping spree and a trip to the salon Monday after school should fix you right up!"

"Ya think so, huh?"

"Oh, totes. You'll be the envy of every girl in this dinky town."

With that, Jessica swiped Isabelle's phone, hurriedly punched her number in the contacts, and sped off. Isabelle rolled her eyes at this overeager, premature gesture of friendship and determined a polite refusal via text would be the best course of action.

"No way in hell am I doing anything with Miss Storm-Clouds-Buried-Under-Sunshine anytime soon."

Isabelle grudged her overstuffed backpack across the living room floor, careful not to wake Charlie. The guy was passed out on the couch with a beer in one hand and the television remote in the other. The scraping of the backpack woke him from his slumber. "Bells, you're home," he slurred.

"Hey, dad, did I wake you? Sorry!"

"No, no, it is perfectly fine! Make any friends today?"

"It's only the second day, dad. But this Jessica girl invited me on a shopping spree Monday afternoon. She's kinda weird, so I'm gonna politely decline."

"Isabelle Swan, what you consider 'weird' is what most people think of as 'normal.' You should go and have fun with this girl!"

"But dad-"

"Go! That's final. Have fun, meet other humans."

"Fine."

Isabelle knew better than to refuse her father when he was inebriated. Within moments, Charlie was dead to the world once more. She slung her massive book carrier over her shoulder and trudged up the stairs.

Jessica casually threw a pick strapless dress at Isabelle, who was currently trapped in the changing room. Isabelle's hand flung out and pulled the piece of clothing into the room and shut the door like she was a monster that pulled unsuspecting victims into the darkness. When she opened the door, Jessica gasped with awe, the forced tone of said awe being less-than-subtle.

"Isabelle, that looks gorgeous on you!"

Isabelle exited the room and gave a little twirl. Jessica led her over to another rack, sending her new project into the dressing room with ten new outfits, none of which Isabelle thought looked "sexy" or whatever. But that wasn't the worst part. The grungy, dirty Edward Cullen stood before her, smiling the creepiest smile ever.

"Hi, Isabelle."

Isabelle shrieked, picked up her purse, and whacked him over the head twice.

"Ow! What the fuck?"

"'What the fuck?' I am the one who should be asking, 'What the fuck!'"

She pulled out the pepper spray Charlie had poorly hidden in her wallet and emptied the entirety of the bottle into Edward's eyes, then kneed him in the nuts before dropping her clothes and racing out the door. Before she could stop herself, Isabelle barreled into Jessica, who was admiring her none-too-visually-disappointing body in a mirror on the support column closest to the changing area.

"What, Isabelle?"

"There… in the changing room," Isabelle could hardly breathe.

"Huh? Swan, don't be scared of a little forgotten piece of lingerie. Just because it stinks like sex is no reason for… oh."

Edward lay prostrate on the ground, trying to get his bearings.

"Security," the girls yelled.

Edward never took his eyes from Isabelle as the security guards threw him onto the pavement.

"You want to go do homework, Izzy?"

"Please."

Isabelle drove them both over to her place and proceeded to take a long, hot shower. It was a good 75 minutes before Charlie started pounding on the bathroom door.

"Don't use up all the hot water, hun!"

"I won't."

"Good girl."

Jessica tapped Charlie on the shoulder. "Hey, Sheriff Swan?"

"Yes, Miss Stanley?"

Jessica whispered something in Charlie's ear and he raced out the door, hoped in his car, and drove off.

Charlie drove right up to the Cullen's front porch, banged on the door, and almost broke the door bell he was pressing it in so hard and so frequently. Esme answered and let him in.

"Good afternoon, Sheriff Swan. What can I help you with?"

Charlie shoved past her.

"That Peeping Tom boy of yours, where is he?"

"I have three of those, sheriff. To which are you referring," rang a voice from the top of the stairs. Carlisle was in the sheriff's face in the next millisecond. No matter how many years the Cullens lived here and even how many vampires came to Forks, Charlie would never get used to that.

"My daughter Isabelle was trying on new clothes with a friend today and Edward snuck inside her dressing room when she wasn't looking! Now, I always knew something was off about Edward, but-"

The loud, obnoxious ringing of his cell phone cut him off.

"Jasper, what is it?"

Charlie's eyes widened in an odd mixture of trepidation and malcontent. "We will finish this later, Carlisle," he scowled before walking to his car and speeding down the road, red and blue lights flashing.

Charlie almost hit his deputy Jasper Hale, he drove into the crime scene with such haste. He got out, slammed his door, and stared at the bodies, which had still to be freed from their current positions.

"What do we got, chief," one of the other deputies asked.

"Look like a bear, Gregory, or a mountain lion," Jasper posited. "Go on home, we got this."

"Are you sure," Gregory inquired.

Jasper got in Gregory's face, looking his subordinate dead in the eyes. "I said, 'Go home, Gregory,'" Jasper insisted.

Gregory hopped into his squad car and left.

"I love it when you do that," Charlie quipped. "Cut them down."

Jasper sliced through the ropes with his fingernails as if they were silly putty and gently laid the corpses on the forest floor. The two law enforcement officials squatted by the unfortunate souls.

"You see the lacerations on the face and arms? And the bite marks on the left side of the girl's neck, and on the right of that of the park ranger," Jasper pointed out.

"These are the same vampires. Serial killer vampires? Seriously," Charlie scoffed, incredulous.

"More like they're just hungry."

"Hungry? Jasper, you and your family feed on animals, yeah, but you don't kill half a dozen of them in a week! I'm going to get to the bottom of this!"

"Maybe they're just hunting, passing through.

He got up, retrieved his shotgun, and cocked it.

"What are you doing," Jasper asked.

"A little hunting of my own."

And Charlie stalked off into the woods.

Edward sat alone on his bed, staring out the window as his fair-haired sister Rosalie entered, quiet as a mouse.

"Hey, sis," Edward smiled.

"Damn you, Edward Cullen," Rosalie growled. "Charlie Swan's girl? Are you serious?"

"Goddamn it, Rosalie, not you, too."

"Yes, me too! If not Carlisle or I, then who? Bro, you cannot keep harassing this girl like this! Stealing into her in the night while she sleeps is creepy enough, but traipsing into a dressing room that she's using? What the fuck is wrong with you, Edward? I love you, but you're a freak!"

This riled Edward up. More than anything, he detested being labeled a "freak." He sprang up and choke-slammed Rosalie onto the floor, then began hitting and kicking her. After a solid three minutes of beating her, he released his sister.

"Fuck you," she coughed, and she stumbled out the door.

"I love Isabelle Swan," Edward whispered.

If you went into the woods of any major Southern or Midwestern state with a landscape that included hills and/or the occasional mountain, no one would find it conspicuous that someone had rented a cabin up there, and no surprise would come from there being people over. These people, however, had a nasty habit never coming back down the path to civilization. It was here that three nomadic vampires had settled down for the duration of their bloody stay in Forks. James fed on another park ranger as Laurent repeatedly tried to get his friend to stop in time for the man to live. As always, the Frenchman's words fell on deaf ears.

"James, please! We could use him if we let him live! We could compel him to be a spy for us in town, since I hear there are other vampire covens in the area. We could root out our adversaries!"

James tossed the eviscerated man aside. Laurent sighed.

"Why? We're just gonna head out soon anyway! Or is my Laurent getting soft?"

"No, James, not at all. Sometimes, I wish you would understand the need for pragmatism."

"Who gives a fuck around here about pragmatism save you? Are you the leader of this coven? No, I am! So what I say goes!"

Victoria strolled in, dragging along a gagged stripper.

"Boys, you're both pretty. Calm yourselves. Besides, it's not like these people are innocent."

"But they are, as far as we're concerned, Victoria," Laurent shot back. "They have lives, and have done us no insult or injury. To say nothing of the way the two of you feed! Like toddlers! Just because we are stronger, faster, and smarter than they are does not make us any better than them. We do not always need to kill to satisfy our hunger."

Victoria seemed genuinely moved for a moment. "You're right, old friend, we do not always have to," she agreed, then casually snapped the stripper's neck.

"But it _is_ always fun."

Laurent, shocked at this blatant disregard for his opinion from someone he considered a close friend, almost fell on his backside. "What has happened to you, Victoria? You were not always so cruel, so callous! The both of you have begun to thoroughly disgust me!" He stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Alas, Laurent was not the only vampire whose words fell on deaf ears every hour of every day. Tucked away in a cell somewhere in the depths of Western State Hospital, in Lakewood, a suburb of Tacoma, Washington, sat a waif of a girl by the name of Alice Cullen, or Mary Alice Brandon as she was known during her human life. Today, she perked up for the first time in days, and smiled. This smile quickly faded into a worrisome frown.

"Don't hurt them," she shouted to no one in particular. "No, no, no, stop it, you! They're innocent!"

She sprang from her perch on her bed and began beating the walls and floors, shrieking to be released from this horrendous place. Several orderlies came in, and although she fought, she was eventually restrained and sedated. Her last conscious thought before fading into medically-induced obscurity was:

"Edward, stop…"


	4. Chapter 3: Twisted Every Way

**Chapter 4: Twisted Every Way**

Alice wasn't a bad girl, per say, she just had bad luck. I mean, how far can a person depend on you when you think you're psychic? She'd been locked up at Western State for close to three years now, and not once had anyone in Alice's immediate family come to visit her. Not even Edward, who she loved most of all. The two always got on well when they were human, but since becoming vampires, Edward had become increasingly more withdrawn from the world. More than once, Alice mistook the shuffle of the orderlies up and down the hall outside her room to be the Cullens come to visit, only to have her hopes dashed when it was a nurse with a few pills or a sedative. Today, however, there was reason for that hope that so often eluded her, a glimmer of sunshine in the darkness. The door opened and in bounded her beautiful baby brother, at long last.

"Edward," Alice yelped, and grabbed onto him like a child whose father has just returned from war. She cupped the boy's face in her hands and smiled at him. "I have missed you so very much, brother dear."

Edward was less than enthused to see her, and in fact barely seemed to register her delight.

"You seem well," he rolled his eyes.

"I am, now that you're here," Alice beamed.

She kissed his cheek and continued to latch onto Edward, despite his best efforts to remove her.

"Alice, let go please."

"No."

"Please?"

"Never."

Edward Cullen had never been a patient person, even in life, strange for someone with nothing but time on his hands. He wrenched himself from the little pixie's grasp and moved toward the door.

"I need you, Edward, here, with me, please don't go!"

Edward turned the knob and Alice threw him back into the room.

"You're the only one I've ever loved, Eddie," she cooed.

With that, she straddled him and began tearing his clothes off.

"Alice, no! Come on. Not now, please. Not now. Alice. Alice. Alice. Alice…"

Edward's voice died off, replaced by that of Carlisle.

"Focus, Alice… Look at me."

He waved his hand in front of Alice's face to no avail. The mental patient just stared into the distance, grinning from ear to ear. Utterly unreachable, lost in her fantasy. The orderly at Carlisle's side shone a flashlight into her eyes. Her pupils were dilated. Carlisle sighed and kissed his daughter's forehead before leaving.

Outside, Carlisle consulted with Dr. Langston, Alice's psychologist.

"It's so good of you to come out here on such short notice, Dr. Cullen," Langston remarked.

"Well, she is my daughter, Franklin. Has she shown any improvement?"

"All due respect, Carlisle, did she look as though she's shown any improvement? As you know, she attacked an orderly during one of her rants. She was screaming to be let out, as usual, and kept yelling about some girl named Isabelle Swan. I just chalked it up to her normal psychosis. I heard Alice has also had a history of being sexually volatile-"

"All that is very fascinating," Carlisle interjected, "but back to the part concerning Alice assaulting an orderly? Care to elaborate on that?"

"Well," Langston began, a bit dejectedly, "young Alice was being held down by a good half-dozen staff members. The one closest to her, Robin Hartford, got a decent-size chunk bitten out of her neck. The patient kept going on and on about how hungry she was in-between shrieking about release and the Swan girl. Hartford has been in the ICU for the last two days. Poor girl lost a lot of blood…"

"I see," Carlisle mused, and then compelled him, "I can take it from here, doctor. Just keep her under observation. Move her to solitary confinement at once."

"Yes, sir," Langston shook Carlisle's hand and shuffled off.

Carlisle looked back at the door to Alice's unfortunate abode, a heavy sadness in his eyes.

"Oh, my dear, if there were only some way to fix you."

The ancient vampire strode away without so much as a goodbye to her.

X=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x

Meanwhile, Isabelle had finally gotten over her terrible encounter with the Cullen boy and invited Jessica over for a study sesh. Big quiz tomorrow. First one of the year. At least, this is what Isabelle had texted Charlie to coerce him into allowing Jessica to come over on a school night, as her father was "out working late."

When the doorbell finally rang, Isabelle thought she was going to explode from all the built-up tension.

"Lying to your dad, huh," Jessica asked. "Someone's been naughty."

Isabelle ushered her inside.

Up in her room, the two were up until three a.m. gossiping about their classmates and chatting boys. Teenage girls. Typical. So caught up were they in their chit-chat that neither of them noticed the shadowy figure creeping up the staircase.

X=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x

Carlisle entered his and Esme's bedroom to find his wife getting spruced up for a party, putting the finishing touches on her makeup. Her dress was a white wrap dress with diamond embroidering, topped off with the silver earrings Carlisle had bought Esme for their 437th wedding anniversary.

"And where are you off to on this beautiful evening, sweetheart," Carlisle laughed.

"Why? Worried I'll be unavailable for dinner-making tonight, doctor," Esme teased.

"I visited Alice today," he said matter-of-factly.

You'd have to be dumb, deaf, and blind to not see the hurt that briefly flashed on Esme's normally-cheerful face.

"Oh?"

"It's not possible for her to-" 

"To what, Carlisle? To survive in such a state? Adoptive or otherwise, she is our daughter! We are not going to make her burn, even if on her lucid days that is what she begs for us to do when we visit. No!"

"I was going to say that it is not possible for her to remain there. She needs to be with family. It's the only time she seems even close to the girl we took in three centuries ago. Therefore, I will get her out."

Tears of joy slipped down Esme's face and she kissed her husband. Carlisle wiped her face clean before bopping her on the nose with his index finger.

"Go on, have some fun. Where are you going, anyway?"

"There's a gala tonight. I was invited."

"Can I come?"

"It's a ladies-only thing. Rosalie is meeting me there."

"Tell her what I said," Carlisle called as Esme zipped out the front door. Words could not describe how much he loved his wife. A loud rush of wind and a door closing interrupted the doctor's love-struck musings.

"Hello," Carlisle cautioned, whipping around. He made his way into the kitchen to find Rosalie, who drank from a large mug filled to the brim with blood.

"Hey, dad! It's type O negative. Want some?"

"No thanks, honey. I thought you were going to that gala with your mom tonight?"

"Oh, I am. I just needed a little something to tide me over until I get home."

Although her hair obscured most of the damage, Carlisle could still make out the faint markings of fading bruises here and there on Rosalie's face, neck, and up and down her legs. He rushed to her side.

"Rose, baby, what happened to you," he queried, concern plain as day in his voice.

"I fell this morning, pretty badly," she brushed him off.

"Rosalie, you know better than to lie to the best doctor in town."

"Yeah, only because you ate all the competition."

"Those people were posers. Anyway, let me take a look."

As he brushed the fair from his beautiful daughter's face, Carlisle noticed that the damage was worse near the hairline. Black, dried blood clung to her roots.

"Who did this," he bellowed.

"Edward," Rosalie stated as casually as one telling the time when asked for it. "I reiterated what you said about the Swan girl, and he beat me for even suggesting the possibility of an alternative to obsessing over her."

"When was this?"

"Monday evening."

"I will stake him, tie him up, and let him burn at sunrise!"

"Dad-"

"Edward has always been a wild card, but this is too far."

"He's your child, too, no different than I or Jasper or Emmett. Even Alice loves him. Why don't you?"

"Don't get me wrong, I do, but your mother and I have had you and the others longer than he. I only took him in because Esme told me that Alice couldn't bear to live somewhere without him. I'm beginning to think his behavioral issues are a permanent inconvenience that no amount of the therapy I've put him in can fix."

"Dad, just let it go. Please. He is family."

"He hurt you, Rosalie. But, for you… I suppose I can give him one last chance."

"Thanks."

She hugged him and he kissed her forehead, rubbing her shoulders.

"I better go put some makeup on. Don't want people to think I've been involved in some unfortunate alley fight or something."

"Have fun," Carlisle called after his beloved daughter.

X=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x

The gala was not at all like Esme had imagined it, insofar as the locale. It was outside, under the starry sky in the square.

As she waded through the crowds, shaking everyone's hand in warm greeting and even engaging in small talk with some, (not that she particularly cared for the boring housewives of the town) another thing Esme was surprised to see was a head full of long, curly flame-like red hair that reached to the woman's shoulder blades.

"This is very, very bad," Esme muttered.

As the figure turned around to smile at someone who complimented her hairstyle, Esme's fears were confirmed.

Victoria Sutherland was there. What's worse, she was fraternizing with the locals like they were anything more than McDonald's Happy Meals on legs to her.

Victoria made her way to Esme, who was at the bar, with little difficulty.

"An outdoor bar, how American," Victoria snarked, trying to distract Esme from the threat posed by her mere presence.

Esme held her ground.

"What do you want, Victoria?"

"I just want to chat. James told me to come tonight. I'm not really sure why, though. The citizens of the town are so superficial as to speak to someone new only once and then discard them. Have you read _American Psycho_ by Brett Easton Ellis?"

"Can't say that I have."

Victoria's exposition seemed to go on for hours, and it indeed may have done so, but here are the cliff notes Esme remembered:

"Well, you should, as it is a brilliant social critique that could easily be applied to today's world despite being published in 1991 and set during the late '80s. It was made into a 2000 film starring Christian Bale and Reese Witherspoon. Basically, this yuppie Patrick Bateman goes on a murder spree- or not, it's up to the reader to decide if it's really happening or if it's all in his head, there are several arguments for both cases- because he is bored. Every person in this society dresses the same, acts the same, and is generally shallow and apathetic, not to mention mean-spirited. And don't get me started on Bateman's fiancée, Evelyn. Ugh. Bateman finds himself, in the end, having achieved nothing in terms of punishment for his crimes by the novel's end. He tries to confess to his lawyer, but when the lawyer sees him, he confuses Bateman for another man (people do this throughout the book, since everyone are basically copies of each other) and the lawyer laughs off his confession as a joke. It's both depressing and indicative of where American society is heading. This generation is so tech-obsessed, culturally-ignorant, and self-centered, not to mention being far too dumb to notice or care about things like the decay of society. But enough on that. How have you been, friend?"

Back to the real-time conversation:

"We haven't been friends in a very long time, Sutherland," Esme growled.

The crowd was beginning to thin out as the night drew to a close, allowing the women to speak more freely.

"I smell deer on your breath, Esme. You've been feeding on animals? Revolting," Victoria chastised.

"Better than the alternative," Esme countered.

Victoria slammed Esme into the ground. "Is it?" She picked Esme up and lifted her into the air by her throat before casually tossing Esme into the salon window across the square.

Coughing, Esme gazed through the dust to find that Victoria was straddling her. The redhead pressed one hand against Esme's stomach, a gentle deterrent from movement.

"Esme, Esme, Esme. You know I would never hurt you… too much." A smirk spread across Victoria's face.

"A few centuries with James," Esme sputtered, "is that all it takes? You were never so cruel when you traveled with Carlisle and I. Never did you have such a callous disregard for human life."

"Then came 1590."

"Such a stark contrast, Victoria. What has changed? Something other than James, that's what I'm talking about. What?"

"I grew up. If you were smarter, you'd do the same. By the way, I thought that eternally-depressed daughter of yours would be here. She said she was coming. Where ever could she be? Abandoning you like this is so unlike-"

Before Victoria could even finish that sentence in thought form, Rosalie grabbed her fur coat and chucked Victoria into the ceiling. The redhead came crashing down on one of the stylist's stations. Rosalie grabbed Esme and tossed her outside.

"Go warn the others that James and his bitches are here," the blonde yelled.

The Cullen matriarch made a quick exit.

Victoria brushed herself off, but while Rosalie braced herself for a fight, the feline vampire chuckled.

"Oh, Rose. You think you can stop us? Stop James? He is so much older than _all_ of you. He's smarter, faster, stronger, and what he has planned… you'll never see it coming."

"We can handle anything that psycho throws our way."

"Really? The Volturi may tolerate your life choices, but the fact remains that while you do no harm to the city's population, you and your family still allow those of us who still drink human blood to traipse through your territory indiscriminately so long as your secrets are not compromised. You all have skeletons in your respective closets. Now, what would the Volturi say if the vampire anonymity in this town changed for whatever reason? James can be particularly nasty when he wishes to. What's worse, he could implicate your entire family in the murder spree of recent weeks, therefore destroying any trust Charlie Swan has in you in addition to pissing off the vampire government. Think on that, Rosalie Hale. You know better than to come after us. Ta."

With that, Victoria somersaulted into the air and ran across the rooftops until she was out of sight.

Knowing the truth in the redhead's words, Rosalie turned toward home.

**A/N: Hey, guys! I'm going to be uploading some new chapters soon, but I would very much like to know what you all think of the developments thus far, especially given my newcomer status, so please, please, PLEASE review! This is the longest chapter so far, and I may be making them longer in the future, but I hope you guys liked it. There will be some shorter chapters as well that deal with flashbacks coming up.**

**As always, let me know what you like, what you dislike, and how I can improve in the future. Although this is an AU/Dark Fic, if something seems too outlandish, please tell me. Again, I can only improve if you (the readers) aid me.**

**We're getting into the juicy parts now plot-wise.**


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